Death Deceives Page 9

  The gigantic cavern had seemed a lot larger when it had been occupied by only a few hundred humans, vampires and imps. Now it almost seemed small. The cages holding the humans had grown in number and took up one whole wall of the cavern. The tents where the unpossessed vampires had once stayed were gone. A glance at the throng told me that no unpossessed vamps remained at all now. Their shadows had either ascended or they’d been turned into imps. A quick count told me there were only a couple of hundred possessed vamps left.

  Thousands of grey skinned imps stood or crouched in ragged rows, waiting to be fed. The possessed vampires had been relegated to kitchen duty since they no longer had anyone left to order around. They had ceased their usual useless posturing and grandstanding and had become subservient to the creatures they themselves would soon become.

  Even with her shadow using her as a puppet, I recognized the white-blonde hair of the Comtesse. Looking through her hulking shadow to the form beneath, I grinned nastily at the bedraggled vampire’s appearance. Her once beautiful golden gown was now dirty and torn. Human blood stained the expensive fabric. She’d lost her shoes and tiny, bare white feet shuffled in the dirt as she reached for a new human snack.

  I’d cut off her left hand the night I’d broken Luc free but it didn’t seem to impede her at all. She grabbed the man one of her former underlings shoved forward and tucked him beneath her stumpy arm. Taking a metal rod that another lackey offered, she rammed it through the guy’s head. His screams halted instantly and she fed the pole through until it exited him through the far end. It could have been worse, I thought almost distantly while fighting down the urge to dry heave. Yeah, she could have started at the other end.

  Working feverishly, the former members of the Court roasted humans and handed the cooked remains to the waiting army of imps. How the mighty have fallen, I gloated. Only a few days ago, the Comtesse and her fellow Council members had ruled the European vampire nation. Now they and their glittering courtiers had been reduced to being slaves for the First’s offspring. I couldn’t conceive of a more fitting end for the praying mantis.

  Helpless to resist, I skirted the bonfires and floated into the shadows beside the caged humans. All had been stripped of their clothing and of their dignity. Some had sunken to the ground in defeat, staring into space with blank eyes that held no hope. Others raged, banging their fists on the bars, screaming to be let out or begging for rescue.

  My dead heart twisted at the sight of children crammed in amongst the adults. A little girl of four or five held her tiny hands out to me through the bars. Tears welled then ran down her dirty face silently. “I’ll save you,” I whispered to her. “I promise I’ll get you out of here.” Just how I was going to accomplish that was something I hadn’t figured out yet.

  Beyond the army of hungry imps, I spied the First. He sat on his throne made of human bones with his head resting on his fist. I couldn’t be entirely sure but he seemed to be brooding.

  Large red eyes brightened when he saw me drifting through the crowd. “Ah, Mortis!” Sitting up straight, the First beckoned me closer. “You are here at last.”

  “Yep,” I replied, “here I am.” And I am sooooo not happy to be here. More dread about what he was going to do to me welled up, making me want to gibber. I kept hold of my poise but just barely.

  Throwing out his arms, he encompassed his entire army. “Tell me, what do you think of my children?”

  Turning my head, I took in the nearly identical monsters. The only thing that distinguished them from each other was that half had boobs and the rest didn’t. A lot of the ones with boobs also had grotesquely bulging stomachs. An area off to the far right had been turned into a crèche. Young imps were in various stages of growing up from newly born to mostly grown. They fought over roasted human flesh like vultures over a half rotten carcass. “I think they’re butt ugly and should never have been born,” I said with utmost honesty.

  “That isn’t a nice way to talk about your brothers and sisters,” the creature said mockingly. Peering past me, he gave a start at the sight of my four shadows. “So, this is why you haven’t come to me in person yet.” He was disturbed but tried to hide it behind a veneer of nonchalance. “How is it that you have gathered such a collection of shadows?”

  I didn’t see any harm in telling him the truth. “I have the blood of four different vampires in my system.”

  Lifting a hairless brow, the First pondered the dilemma. Well used to being different from every other vampire on the planet, I still felt like a freak under his scrutiny. The being before me was the first of us all and I was a puzzle even to him. “Why did you not simply die when you ingested the blood of the second vampire?”

  “I didn’t drink it, it was poured directly onto my heart.”

  Waving the explanation away, he scowled. “It should not matter how the blood was passed to you, you should have died.”

  A shrug was my answer. “I am Mortis,” I said simply. “Lots of things don’t kill me that kill the rest of my kind.” I wasn’t about to recite the list to him. He might figure out what could kill me through a process of elimination.

  Definitely brooding now, the First studied my shadows. They hid behind me, cowering beneath his glare. “I am the First and I am your ruler,” he said to the pack ominously. Pointing a claw at the shadows, he stood to his entire eight foot height and towered over us. My shadows, knowing who their true master was, quailed. Instead of fighting amongst themselves, they were now clustered together in fright. “I command you to rise!” the First bellowed.

  My shadows immediately fell back to slapping at each other again. Almost giddy with relief that I hadn’t become possessed, I glanced over my shoulder at the squabbling pack. “They’re like a bunch of naughty toddlers. I can’t take them anywhere,” I said with mock despair as I started drifting away. My silhouettes followed me, still childishly fighting for supremacy.

  Sitting back down on his throne, the First returned to brooding in earnest. “This means nothing,” he shouted at me as I ghosted past his army. “One shadow shall prevail against the others and then you will be mine!”

  “Yeah, yeah, blah, blah,” I said as I woke from the dream. Luc, in the act of dressing, gave me a mild stare. “You won’t believe the dream I just had,” I said as I threw the covers back.

  “Perhaps you should wait for the others to join us before you tell me about it,” he suggested. Knowing Geordie might be seconds away from bursting into the room, I grabbed my backpack and headed for the bathroom. I closed the door just as I heard the elevator open at the far end of the hall. A shrill, familiar giggle emerged.

  Luc let our friends in as I dressed rapidly in one of my black leather suits. Luc and Gregor sat on the bed as I opened the door. Igor leaned against a wall and Geordie had taken one of the two chairs. “Good evening, chérie,” the kid said with a cheeky smile. “I hope you had pleasant dreams.”

  “Actually,” I replied as I took the seat beside him, “I did have a funny dream.” I described the fate that had befallen the Comtesse, Council and their courtiers. Geordie sniggered uneasily, Igor looked grave and Gregor ran a hand through his mane of hair. Only Luc appeared to be unaffected by the story. He hid his emotions well and I had no idea what he was thinking.

  “I for one do not regret the fate that has befallen our leaders,” Gregor said yet his expression remained disturbed. He was intelligent enough to have figured out the implications. If someone as powerful as the Comtesse could become the First’s kitchen bitch then none of us stood a chance of escaping from that very same fate.

  “I am glad that we are on your side, chérie,” Geordie said solemnly. “Otherwise, we might be in their shoes by now.”

  “We’ll probably all end up in their shoes anyway,” I replied glumly. The kid’s face fell but I wasn’t going to lie to him. We had to face reality. There was no use in pretending we weren’t in dire straits when we so very clearly were.

  The TV had been turned on but the
sound was muted. A very familiar face caught my eye and I lunged for the remote control. “Oh, no. This can’t be happening,” I moaned.

  “Natalie,” Geordie said slowly after he turned to see what I was doing, “call me crazy but that person looks a lot like you.”

  At first the footage was too blurry to be certain I was watching what I thought I was watching. I could only make out that a woman with brown hair was accosting someone.

  All of a sudden, the picture came into focus and my face was displayed on national television in extreme close up. I’d been so intent on feeding that I hadn’t even seen the camera that must have been attached to the Russian soldier’s helmet.

  I managed to get the sound on but the soldier hadn’t been fitted with a microphone. “Sleep,” I read my own lips and the soldier’s head sagged, dropping the camera to my mouth. Twin fangs descended and my head lunged towards his neck. The camera showed a view of my leather clad back and the laces that held my suit together.

  It was over quickly then I sat the soldier down. The picture froze after I stepped back to take a look at my handiwork. I shivered at the cold, predatory expression on my face. Wow, I look really evil when I feed. Just how much had I changed since becoming a vampire? Uneasy at the question, I decided not to put too much thought into it. I’d worry about how evil I was if we lived through the next few days.

  A reporter came on and the picture of me shrank and was moved to the side. “I repeat that this…woman is extremely dangerous. If you see her, do not approach. Call the number below and the military will take action.” A phone number flashed up on the screen in bright red letters.

  I wondered how many people around the country were reaching for pens and a scrap piece of paper to jot the number down on. Feeling the others staring at me incredulously, I kept my eyes on the screen. Well, it can’t get any worse than this, I thought. I found out almost immediately that I was wrong about that as another video began to play.

  This one had been shot from the helicopter that had been hovering over us as we’d battled the imps. The reporter spoke off camera. “This footage was taken by a military helicopter last night.” It was a nice, clear video of Gregor, Igor, Luc and I rushing towards the imps while Geordie fired Igor’s crossbow from a distance.

  I watched in fascination as the imps piled on top of me. A couple of minutes later, the monster’s heads exploded and they were thrown away to land in a rough circle. The camera zoomed in, capturing my face as I glanced up at the light. “As you can see,” the reporter went on, “this is the same woman in both videos. Again, we urge you to call the number below if you see this person.”

  Muting the TV, I reluctantly turned to see how my companions were reacting to the footage. ‘Stunned disbelief’ would come closest to describing their expressions. Luc shook his head slowly, lost for words. Igor’s mouth was open but nothing was coming out. Gregor clenched his hair with both hands, desperately trying to think of a solution to this unsolvable problem. Geordie’s lips trembled for a few seconds then he broke down, laughing hysterically.

  “How can you find anything funny about this situation?” Igor growled at the teen. For once, he didn’t reach out and land a blow on the back of his apprentice’s head.

  Gathering himself, Geordie managed to control his laughter long enough to explain his hilarity. “After tens of thousands of years of keeping our identity secret from humans, Natalie has managed to alert the entire world about our existence in the first six months of becoming one of us!” He howled with laughter again but none of us joined him.

  It was possible that the army might have come up with an explanation for the five of us fighting the imps and surviving. However, the video of me munching on the soldier blew any chance of vampires remaining secret now. I said what the rest of our small group were all thinking. “I am totally screwed.”

  We all heard faint screams in the distance at the same time. They were followed by a blood chilling roar that couldn’t possibly have been made by anything native to this planet. I’d never heard anything sound so hungry and at the same time so evil.

  “I think we’re all screwed, chérie,” Geordie said solemnly. The town we’d chosen to use as our base was under attack.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ever practical, Igor outlined our choices. They were limited to two: “Do we run or do we stay and fight?”

  My answer was to draw both of my swords. A dragon graced one of the shiny silver blades and a lion had been etched into the other. I hoped I would do Ishida proud with the weapons he’d gifted me with. “I’m going to try to help the humans.” The thought of running away without trying to stop the coming carnage didn’t even enter my head. Ok, maybe it did for a second or two but I ignored it.

  “Where you go, I go,” Luc said firmly and I flashed him a grin.

  Igor grimly pulled a machete from his belt, wordlessly telling us that he wasn’t going anywhere. Gregor shook his head at his own folly then opened his tweed coat to reveal the axe he’d stashed inside. Geordie, plainly terrified, fumbled Igor’s crossbow across his narrow chest and accidentally shot a bolt into the wall. I snorted out a laugh then we were both giggling. There was a good chance that most of us were about to die and I had to let off the tension somehow. Even I couldn’t fight hundreds of imps without suffering injuries. My friends were nowhere near as resilient as me. I would try to save as many humans as possible but I was also going to watch out for my team.

  I might lose them all right now, I thought as first Igor then the rest of us filed out of the room. If they died and I was the only one remaining, I resolved to hunt down the First and do my best to tear him apart with my bare hands. These were the only friends I had and they accepted me for who and what I was. Before meeting them, I’d been on my own for far too long and didn’t want to return to a state of solitude again.

  Watching multiple news reports of the carnage the imps left behind after sweeping through a town didn’t prepare me for being in the centre of one of their attacks. Wails of terror, shrieks of pain and the primordial roars of the First’s offspring surrounded us as we sprinted out of the hotel lobby and onto the street. Humans fled past on foot, blindly following each other in their panic. Some drove, holding the steering wheel with panicky tightness as they barely managed not to mow their fellow townspeople down. Even as we watched, an unfortunate man detoured from the footpath onto the road. A terrified woman somewhere in her eighties mowed him down. I wasn’t sure she even noticed the tyres bumping over him.

  “There is no use confronting the beasts head on,” Gregor decided. “Not when hundreds of them are attacking the town.” From the roars and multitude of heavy, thudding footsteps that were rapidly drawing closer, I thought he might be correct in his assessment of their numbers.

  “Perhaps we should attack them from the flanks and from behind,” Luc suggested.

  Gregor stumbled back a step when another flood of fleeing humans streaked past. “We will have more chance of success if we do.”

  “He means there will be less chance of us dying straight away if we perform sneak attacks,” Geordie said to me out of the side of his mouth. I nodded in agreement. That had been my interpretation, too.

  “Quickly, into the alley,” Igor urged and gestured for us to follow him. We were all wearing dark clothing, which helped us to blend in with the shadows. That reminded me of my latest dream and I turned a suspicious eye on my four silhouettes. They were still acting normally and my unease lessened slightly.

  Keeping to a fast jog, Igor wound his way through the darker streets until we found an isolated bunch of imps. An even dozen of the monsters were herding a group of humans back towards the direction the imps had first come from.

  Exchanging looks, we silently agreed to attack. The small noises we made as we approached were covered by the frightened sobbing or terrified screaming of the food. I reached the first imp and remorselessly stabbed him in the back. He went down with a quiet gurgle. A heavily pregnant female imp
turned to see what had happened to him. My sword went into her eye and she also went down.

  Finally aware that they were under attack, the remaining ten grey imps turned to engage us. Luc and I did most of the dispatching. I could have taken them all down myself but it was always good policy to share. Blocking clumsy blows, Luc and I chopped them all down until none of them were standing.

  Showing a streak of ruthlessness that didn’t surprise me at all, Igor knelt beside the pregnant imp. Her grotesquely swollen stomach bulged as the unborn foetus inside her struggled to get out. Sensing danger, the baby gave a muffled roar that was cut off when Igor plunged his sword into its dead mother’s stomach.

  Geordie made gagging noises when his mentor hacked the baby imp to pieces. Looking away, I also resisted the urge to heave. No matter how long I remained unalive, I hoped I’d never become used to seeing horrors like that.

  A timid female voice addressed us in Russian. “Are you going to kill us now?” We turned around to see some of the human cattle hadn’t taken the opportunity to flee. A teenaged girl with tears still spilling down her face had asked the question.

  “Of course not,” I replied in English. “We’re rescuing you.”

  “But aren’t you the woman from the news?” a shaken man in his fifties asked, switching to English for my benefit. He cradled his left arm in his right. Blood from a long cut had soaked his sleeve. “Aren’t you the person we keep seeing on the news?”

  To buy time to think of an answer that wouldn’t traumatize them all further, I bent and cleaned my swords on the loincloth of a dead imp. When I straightened, they were still waiting for an answer. None of my colleagues were about to step in and help me out. This was my punishment for allowing myself to be caught on film in the first place. “Look, unless you’re a seven foot tall grey monster, you’re safe from us,” I finally told the group.